


Yibambe

by SantivaPotter_93



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Black Panther (2018), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-21 06:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14278410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SantivaPotter_93/pseuds/SantivaPotter_93
Summary: Nakia isn’t in Wakanda when all hell breaks loose—for more reasons than one. But that doesn't mean any of them think they'll be able to save the world without her help. Set roughly 24 hours before Steve Rodgers and friends bring death and destruction to Wakanda’s door instead of the damn Starbucks that Okoye asked for.





	Yibambe

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I needed to rationalize why Marvel didn't pay Lupita N'yongo the money she's deserved to kick ass alongside everybody else. Note: It's been a minute since I've written fic, but there ain't nearly enough Nakia centered stuff, so y'all gone have to put up with me until someone better comes along. Also all xhosa is provided by various internet search engines in a desperate attempt to avoid Google Translate, but if anyone is fluent, please PLEASE correct me!

_Oakland, California_

In her thirty plus years of life, Nakia still hasn’t quite mastered the art of rest. It’s easy to blame this on her former occupation. As a part of War Dog training, she’d been condition to create makeshift beds from every material imaginable and never allow anything more than a gentle breeze to keep her from rising at a moment’s notice. But her family and childhood friends always knew the truth; she was the River Tribe’s uzulani, the wanderer. When sleep evaded her as a young girl, Nakia was known for sneaking out of the back door of her family’s home and disappearing into the tall grasslands in search of new passage ways to lead her to her favorite destination, the riverbanks.

But there are no rivers for Nakia to chase in Oakland when she can’t sleep. Tonight, her only consistent comforts lie in tracing the empty half of her bed that still carries her fiancé’s cologne and the news broadcasts about the alien spaceship still hovering above New York. As Nakia creates false rivers in the silk sheets, the CNN segment cuts between live footage of the ominous ship and a panel of men and women barely keeping the fear out of their voices as they try to describe what this means. So when a call comes in at 3 am from T’Challa, via her kimoyo beads, it doesn’t bother her as much as it should.

“T'Challa,” Nakia greets, “shouldn’t you be on your way to a council meeting?”

She cannot see his surroundings, but he’s dressed in his favorite black and gold robes—the ones she had woven for him as a belated coronation gift last year—and the look on his face tells her exactly where this conversation will go.

“I want you to return home Nakia.”

On the television in front of her, one analyst tries to remind the panel that the Avengers previously saved New York from alien destruction, but the conversation quickly disintegrates into an all-out shouting match. Nakia mutes the segment in order to be heard.

“I cannot return, not yet,” she tells him. “The school year is not yet finished and we’re still waiting on at least one more child for this quarter’s N’Jadaka project. We cannot leave them behind.”

Not when he knows how much this project means to the both of them. She and T’Challa never believed that N’Jobu was the only War Dog who failed to mention any biological children in their reports. And in a country like America, where so much can easily go so wrong for black men and women, Nakia arrived to California knowing that Erik was not the only lost child of Wakanda. Each and every one of them deserved the opportunity to connect with their families and see a Wakandan sunset for themselves—should they wish. So far, her team had tracked down two dozen children between North and South America. A handful of them, mostly orphans, were currently staying in the Embassy. The latest new addition, Imani, the daughter of a former contemporary of Nakia’s, who’d been bouncing between foster homes in Austin, Texas, was schedule to arrive tomorrow.

The frown of T’Challa’s face deepens and he raises a finger to momentarily pause their discussion. Most likely to dismiss whichever members of the Dora Milaje that were nearby. He knew better than to suggest such a desire—and she recognizes that it was a suggestion, not a command from her king—in front of an audience. At least, she hopes to Bast he was smart enough not to do that.

“My love, I know how much the Center and the Embassy mean to you, but perhaps you have not seen; there is a—”

“Large circular red ship floating above Manhattan,” Nakia finishes. “I’m watching the news now. Between this and all the mess between that shrinking Ant fellow and the authorities, the local pundits here think we’re going to die.”

Nakia sits up and reaches over to her nightstand to grab the stash of barbeque pork rinds that she keeps around for late night cravings. Any other night, T’Challa would tease her about the snack—something she’d discovered years ago while undercover in the American South and admittedly had a hard time letting go of. They’re noisy and messy to eat as she speaks, so it instead quickly earns T’Challa’s ire.

“And you are clearly not concerned,” he continues. T’Challa runs a hand over his face and sighs. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I am—we are safe. Retreating to Wakanda now will not stop whatever that’s coming. And we both know this isn’t the call you should be making right now.”

“Oh? So I shouldn’t be checking in on the woman I love when she’s 3,000 miles away from whatever that ship holds?”

“Nope,” Nakia replies, accenting her response with a loud crunch of her chips. “You ought to be on the phone with Tony Stark.”

“Nakia.”

She’s always loved the way T’Challa says her name, even when he’s exasperated by her positions. He drags out each vowel longer than anyone she’s knows—as if not just calling for her, but using his voice to wind along the riverbanks she use to chase as a child. His voice reminds her too much of home. That’s partially why she loves him so and the small part of her heart that skips a beat as she watches little ones from the muted television screen point up at that ship desperately wants to oblige his request.

“You didn’t open up Wakanda’s borders to turn your back on the rest of the world at its potentially darkest hour.”

“Potentially?”

“Who knows, they could be here to see the sights,” Nakia shrugs, waving her hand around causing pork rinds to fly across the sheets. T’Challa looks ready to comment on that, but he wisely sticks to the ghost of a smirk.

“Besides,” she continues, “I hear that New York is quite lovely in the spring.”

“Oakland is better.”

Nakia smiles at him and he returns it, without grimace or tension. For a moment, they both welcome a small sense of serenity.

“You’re a bit biased,” she reminds him.

“True, but I cannot deny that I miss you.”

“You’re not alone in that, you know,” she assures him. “We’ll be home in a few weeks’ time umyeni. Once the school year is done, we’ll bring home the children from the N’Jadaka Project and you’ll have me all to yourself again.”

“And perhaps, by then we can make time for a certain formal announcement?”

Bast, in her ever-loving kindness and _peculiar_ sense of humor, chooses this moment to run a tv commercial about a man proposing with an engagement ring from a local shop in the background. The scene is not so unlike how T’Challa had asked—in the midst of nature and blissfully in private, for the two of them to savor.

Nakia nearly makes a crude joke about how the announcement of their engagement resembling the end of the world but holds her tongue. T’Challa will not find it funny, not really. He’s prepared his entire life to be king, to rule Wakanda. But despite her love for him and her country, the idea of bearing the responsibility of stepping into the role of Queen is still enough to shake her.

She’s still not quite satisfied with Wakanda’s standing on the world stage—there’s so much more that they could be doing. So much isolationism to atone for. But Nakia knows that the Tribal Council, Dora Milaje, and River Tribe elders, including her own uncle, see her visions as too radical. The Queen Mother has already warned her about undermining the agendas that she and T’Challa share by moving too fast. Admittedly, politics had never held much of Nakia’s interest. She’d always preferred a spear—something that she and Okoye would at least always have in common.

And what if the path she leads Wakanda down, brings more pain and hurt for everyone involved? The Hatut Zeraze trained the War Dogs to politics to disappear into governments and dismantle them from the inside if needed. There was still so much to learn about creating viable solutions for the various needs of the outreach centers. To add the weight of Queen on top of that…

 “You don’t think it’ll be too early? By the time we return, we’ll all be wrapped up in preparations for the harvest festival…”

 “We don’t have to do it then,” he amends. “Though, I’d recommend that we at least tell your mother by then.”

“Yours too, no?”

T’Challa looks down, but Nakia can see a smile forming.

“Umyeni!”

“Blame Shuri,” he explains. Nakia tries to groan, but she knows that it sounds much too akin to laughter.

“You told your sister too?”

“When’s the last time _you_ tried to keep a secret from that girl?”

They both succumb to laughter—Nakia’s being so loud that Xoliswa, the head of her Dora guard in California, peaks her head into the room. Nakia waves her off as more pork rinds fly.

“You know you called me husband, just now, yes?” T’Challa’s grin threatens to split his face into two.

“Well you keep running your mouth around Birin Zana and you may find yourself without a future wife.” T’Challa snorts at the empty threat and the sound alone is enough to send them both into another fit of giggles.

“I don’t care how long it takes for us exchange vows before Bast,” T’Challa says once their laughter subsides, “just promise me that we will.”

 _Queendom be damned, I want to marry this man._ She’s a wanderer to her core for Bast’s sake. Nakia can barely remember the last time she lived in one space for more than year without wearing any kind of mask. But with T’Challa, she has the freedom—no she feels safe enough to unravel the layers of protection that she’s built up over the years of globe-trotting espionage.

Their moment ends however, when his head snaps backwards after hearing a dull knock. Nakia cannot see who he’s speaking with and debates enacting the expansive view on the com kimoyo beads to chase off whoever dares to butt in on their time, but T’Challa quickly turns back to her.

“I must go.”

Nakia nods and pushes down her irritation to the bottom of her stomach. Thus is the life of the King. “Have fun with the council. Call Stark before you speak with them. The Avengers will undoubtedly need our help.”

“If Stark comes, I doubt he’ll enjoy hearing about the White Wolf.”

It’s Nakia’s turn to frown. She doesn’t know Stark personally; she’s only spoken with the billionaire a handful of times over the past two year. Nakia admittedly, much prefers engaging with his better half, Pepper Potts. She’s a brilliant woman, with an infinite amount of patience. But it’s clear to see that Tony doesn’t exactly let things go.

“Bucky can handle himself,” Nakia replies. “Besides, Bast help Stark if Shuri gets wind of him trying to kill her new friend.”

“You mean Guinea pig. For a man who claims to want to live out his life in peace and quiet, he lets her con him into way too many of her experiments.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Nakia teases.

A voice interrupts them again, but this time it’s one that she recognizes. Okoye doesn’t come into view, but Nakia would know her friend’s tone and intonation anywhere—especially as T’Challa tries to bargain for more time with her.

“Stop stalling,” Nakia chides. “We’ll talk soon, I promise. Give everyone my love.”

“And what if I choose to keep it all for myself?”

“Then what will you do when we hold celebrations for the engagement, eh?” Nakia laughs. “Does the Black Panther plan to fight with the elders, let alone the entire River Tribe in order to hog all my affection?”

“Depends on the elder,” T’Challa grins. 

In the background, Okoye scoffs and interjects, “What a king we have here in Wakanda!”

“I may be a king, but I also a man,” he replies. “One who loves you dearly, Nakia.”

“And I you, T’Challa,” she replies. “Now go before your mother and Okoye start that council meeting without you.”

“They’ll have to wait,” he sighs. “My fiancé tells me that I have a certain billionaire to call first. Cosi.”

“Always.”

The animated sand falls back into its capsule in the palm of Nakia’s hand as the line goes dead. She sets the chips to the side, no longer hungry, and brings her knees to her chest as she unmutes the television. There’s more footage of New York, but this time from the Chitauri incident. The camera zooms over a series of high-rise depilated building and civilians scattering through the streets below. When camera lingers on a small boy covered in soot and crying profusely, Nakia’s stomach churns.

She pushes her snack aside, littering the bed with more chips, and walks over to her desk to review the files on the Center’s ongoing lesson plans. Tomorrow more children will arrive wanting to be transported from away from the expectations of parents desperate to see their children be better than them, law enforcement officers who barely give a damn if they live or die, or educators that barely believe they belong. And now they’ll be looking for refuge from whatever it is that’s brought the latest visitors to New York. As she reads, the CNN anchor pivots from ominous headlines of the apocalypse to the resurgence and sudden disappearance of Ant-Man, Scott Lang and his new mystery partner— _criminal colleague, childhood friend, or wife_?

From this distance the remote is almost too far to reach without leaving her seat, so when Nakia lunges across to mute the television, she overcompensates and bangs her elbow against the bedframe as the tv clicks to black. Exhaustion rolls over her as her forearms throb and her left foot twinges after awkwardly catching the leg of her desk on the descent to the floor.

Rather than bothering with standing up, Nakia folds her arms as both a pillow and altar. She sends up a quick prayer that Bast will provide her at least some of the answers to tomorrow problems. She prays for her tribe, the friends she hasn’t seen in years, her parents and cousins, Okoye, W’Kabi, Ayo, Ramonda and Shuri. She begs Bast for the opportunity to personally set T’Challa’s mind at ease soon. When the words are lost to her, Nakia rests her head in the crook of her folded elbows. She manages to guide her mind along the winding river towards sleep and pushes aside the dread that she’ll come to regret the decision to stay in Oakland. 

**Author's Note:**

> In a perfect world this little fic'll be finished before Infinity War is released...


End file.
